Void Souls, Voided Warranties
by Pinky-sama
Summary: Penny Arcade, Gabe x Tycho. Tycho has no words; Gabe doesn't need them. Shounen ai content.


**Void Souls, Voided Warranties**  
It flashed before Gabe's eyes that day, playing a round of SSBM with the gang. Tycho had lost for an uncharacteristic third time in a row, and as everyone else mocked him jokingly, he got up and went into the kitchen.   
  
Gabe saw something in his eyes then.   
  
"Guys, don't treat Tycho like that," said Gabe abruptly. "He's almost a real person, with almost-real feelings. Maybe we should give him a day off to let the scar tissue regenerate, so it hurts more next time."   
  
Batjew and Safety Monkey paused and looked at each other. Despite the thin veil of derision, they knew Gabriel must be deeply concerned. In the past, Gabe had always been the first to mess with Tycho's sanity, then dip it in the hot fudge of betrayal and the red, stinging Gummi Bears of spite. What could be going on? The two responded the only way they knew how. "If you love him so much, why don't you marry him, sissyfag?" said Batjew, and Safety Monkey had thrown in a similar quip, but Gabe was already absorbed in the sound of the slamming door, and by the time he had time to think about the words he was gazing after the space where Tycho had been. He started for Tycho's house. Whether or not he wanted to talk about it, they would have a chat.   
  
. . .   
  
Tycho passed Gabe a four-panel note. "She doesn't love me, Gabe." He sniffed distantly, as Gabe's eyes flashed over the pixelated bean and robot. A silence passed, the loading time for the new zone's emotional textures, and with a whir everything became clear to Gabe. Tycho was broken.   
  
Gabe sighed, because he knew his friend was hurt, and the knowledge hurt him as much as it did Tycho. And he had only one means and one chance to bridge the gap, and it was a precarious one, and what if it failed? - but to mend the sorrow in those beautiful eyes, Gabe knew he had to try. "Tycho, you've always been the writer between us," he said. "But tonight, I have something to say." He cracked open the case of the Xbox they both sat on with a click.   
  
To counter Tycho's stunned expression, Gabe managed a passing smile. "Well, I'd originally hollowed out the space for radioactive scorpions - but I think this is more important." Wordlessly, he took Tycho's hand and led him into the voluminous confines. Between the GPU and DVD drive there was a nook, and it was here that the two settled down.   
  
"Gabe-" started Tycho, but the yielding finger at his pliable lips quickly hushed the objection. John Gabriel silently took the treasured watch from his arm and wrapped it around Tycho's slim wrist, worn with thousands of rounds of video games but still firm and strong, each of his long artistic fingers withdrawing longingly until the last digit let go with the snap of the latch. "I love you, Tycho Brahe," he said.   
  
In that moment, their gazes met, and there was a moment of magic. And in that moment of magic, once and forever reborn in the tottering expanse of mystery, the Brobdingnagian console turned on; whether by some fabrication of science, or of its own sympathetic accord, its pale green electricity flowed about them in the same manner as that curious internal electricity which that moment was flowing through them as nothing ever had before. Perhaps their restless shifting was enough of a change of weight and scientific force to depress the power button gazing down hopefully above; or perhaps it is enough for us to know that in this world truths like love, and magic, still exist. But none of this was on Tycho's swirling yet strangely focused mind; that usually-cynical-and-jaded embodiment of self finally rest upon only one object, soul, being.   
  
"And I love you, Gabe," exalted Tycho, softly, as the hum of the motor drew to an intoxicating and lulling whir. And for the first time in days, a smile crept across his face; and beneath the enveloping emerald light of the vaulted jewel above and the divine song of the 733 MHz processor, he exhaled in relief, and receipt, and release, and above all things, rebirth. "I love you, Gabriel," he breathed, "I love you, I love you, my one-wanged angel." 


End file.
